His inspiration that all students must spend a year "abroad" with the Lunar Army was a brilliant stroke, though a few gifted students might be able to avoid this by participating in an student exchange program with Orathorn, the City of 10,000 Magicians, the secretive Blue Moon School, or a similar fully accredited institute of higher learning.
His discussion of the effects of the Hero Wars on the college and students was especially insightful, reminded me of World War II (which, I assume, was the intent).
Although I feel I should object to the Major Classes being equated with post-graduate work, I find that I cannot -- it seems to work quite well.
And of course, the rare Major Classes graduate will stay to complete her (or his) "doctoral" studies, thereby earning the rank of High Class Magician of the Full Moon School.
Peter Metcalfe on TheCam's CivII list:
>Vormain:
>Tendencies: Aggressive, Militaristic.
I would have thought that the Vormaini would have "Isolationism" as a tendency, given their long history of of this practice.
>Female leader of Black Horse Country: Snowfly.
Isn't that Sir Ethilrist's horse?
And back to my and Peter's regularly scheduled Mostali debate:
>Only the Uz age half as fast as humans.
You are correct in this -- I misread the paragraph, because I was misremembering what it said as I read it.
>And you are ignoring the
>fact that Ginkizzie doesn't become King as soon as he's made. He
>has to earn his position whether apostate or heretic or orthodox.
>And that takes _time_ in dwarf society. So Ginkizzie should be
>almost on his last legs by now.
Unless ... perhaps Ginkizzie is really Flintnail?
>>There are a number of clues to this in The Broken Council, in at least
>>two character write-ups.
>
>Surely Pavis was created after the Broken Council so how could
>there be clues to this in the character writeups?
Both Pavis' dryad mother and Isidilian the Wise were members of the Council at the time of the Gbaji Experiment -- the cluese there or for the two of them.
>However E. Rowe has come to your rescue by pointing out to me
>off-line that RQ Adventures #5 contains a gweg-appwoved
>interview by Isidilian which confirms that he helped Pavis.
>However it does not specifically state that he is the god of
>the Cult. I think therefore that Isidilian left behind some
>Rock Dwarves to help complete the City and that the nameless
>human son who founded the cult was actually Flintnail himself
>forging a cult of human auxillaries.
I can agree with this, as I suggested something _similar_ earlier, though I didn't make the full connection. So, do you think that Ginkizzie could be a true, non-apostate dwarf ruling over the misguided dwarfs who remained behind after Isidilian left? I could accept the sorcery thing instead of Divine Magic if that were the case. However, if a half-human son of Isidilian stayed behind to found the cult, then it would _have_ to be Divine Magic, I think you must admit, since the cult would have grown up under the tutelage of the Pavis cult.
>After all, we pathetic humans can understand Marteler's schism from the
>Only Old One using human concepts of sheer greed.
Except that I am sure there was more going on here than sheer greed, and thus a human concept of the situation will ever be inadequate to explain it fully. I will stick with Sandy in claiming that the dwarfs of Pavis are apostate. After all, it is not necessarily Isidilian who dooms them to this, it may be another diamonddwarf who accompanies him who decides to stay.
Perhaps there were two Mostali who accompanied Pavis, Isidilian and a Rock Mostali or, more likely, Rock Diamonddwarf. After all the work is done, Isidilian says it's time to go home. But this other dwarf, he has other ideas, including actually creating a child with one of the humans! Many of the rock dwarfs who came out to carve up the statue decide to stay with their Rock Diamonddwarf leader, and not return home to Dwarf Mine. And so the seeds of apostasy are sown.
Over time, the two Mostali figures could easily merge into one in the popular mind, since Isidilian is so famous -- his being a Quicksilver Mostali is probably not common knowledge, and after a few centuries of troll devastation, a _lot_ of knowledge might be lost.
Of course, Pavis himself knows the truth, and official temple pronouncements from the Pavis Temple proclaim this, which is why it is only a _rumour_ that Isidilian is Flintnail.
This solution, as I see it, has the advantages of fitting all the known facts, of fitting the hints placed into Broken Council, and of explaining the problems with Isidilian not being a Rock Mostali.
I do agree with what Peter said about dwarf immortality -- I think it is, as published, an innate characteristic rather than the result of umpteen million Immortality spells cast however often they need to be.
Stephen Martin
ilium_at_juno.com
- -----------------------------------------------The Book of Drastic Resolutions
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